JOURNEY TO LAPLAND. 3$ 



Baeck, " must be a faithful lover of Flora who suffers so much in 

 " her service, and is contented with a favourable smile of his beloved 

 « one,as LiNN^us was with a plant growing on the brink of some steep 

 " waterfall, to which he climbed up in danger of his life, or with some 

 « unknown moss concealed in profound caverns or clefts." 



The journey through Lapland was the first and most difficult of the 

 six different travels of Linnaeus. He spoke himself of it afterwards, 

 when he assumed the funftions of his academical office in the year 1741, 

 in the following expressions : " There is no important nor considerable 

 " province of Sweden through which I have not roamed with great fa- 

 " tigue and bodily exertion. My journey through Lapland v.^as particu- 

 " larly toilsome : and I own that I was obliged to sustain more hardships 

 " and dangers in this sole peregrination through the frontier of our 

 " northern world, than in all the travels which I undertook in other 

 " parts, though not without fatigue and weariness. But having once sus- 

 *' tained the toils of travelling, I buried in the oblivion of Lethe, all the 



dangers and difficulties which I had suffered. The invaluable fruits 

 " which I reaped from these excursions, compensated for every toil*." 



The best comparative image of the Alps of Lapland, is presented by 

 those of Switzerland. But how many excellencies and prerogatives 



* l^ulla facile est nobilior Suecia Provincia, quam ego non perrepta'vt, perlustraoji, etsi 

 von sine corporis viriumque defatigatione eximia. Iter quidem Lapponicum maxirni mihi con- 

 stitit laboris ; et fateor, necessum mihi fuisse, plus dcnjorare molestie ac periculi, vagando per 

 unam banc mundi nostri arHoi oram, quam per reliquas omnes, quas unquam genhum contigit 

 t/tihi obire terras in extero orbe, nec tamen et ipsas absque delassatione •viriumque jaflura a me 

 cahatas. Sed — exatlantis itinerihus, mox cimnis dcfunili discriminis ac molestia me quasi 

 Lethcea cepit obliniio, compensante hcec omnia fru£iu inastimabile, quem ex bis 'viarum errori. 

 bus reporto'vi. Linn. Amoenitat. Acad. Vol.11. 



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